Sam Rapoport, Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the National Football League, and Becca Gitlitz-Rapoport, a producer, director, and filmmaker currently creating films at Time Studios, make a case that everyone needs a wife.
Jelani talks with Sam Rapoport and Becca Gitlitz-Rapoport. Ever wanted to know what a power couple looks like? It looks like Sam and Becca.
Sam is an executive at the National Football League. Yep. The NFL. She just so happens to be an out and proud employee working in football, where she's a 21 year veteran.
Her wife, Becca, is an Emmy-winning producer, director, and filmmaker currently creating films at Time Studios.
They also happen to have two little amazing children at four and nine months old.
The conversation gets into all about how they met, started a family, and learned both have incredibly high profile careers while raising their kiddos. Sam and Becca talk about the stigma they face as a gay couple and what society feels is and isn't acceptable for them in raising their children.
Jelani shares that Sam and Becca are good friends, allies, and two of the best parentshe knows. Enjoy this conversation and all the wisdom they share.
Check out Sam and Becca’s book, A Kids Book About Allyship, by visiting akidsco.com/products/a-kids-book-about-allyship.
Contact us by emailing us at listen@akidsco.com.
Explore our collection of over 80 books made to empower, by visiting akidsco.com.
Better Grownups
S1E08, Being Gay is a Huge Privilege with Sam Rapoport and Rebecca Gitlitz-Rapoport
[INTRODUCTION]
Jelani: Hey, welcome to Better Grownups.
I'm Jelani Memory, founder of A Kids Co. And this is a parenting podcast all about how to be a better grownup.
This week, I'm chatting with Sam Rapoport and Becca Gitlitz-Rapoport. Ever wanted to know what a power couple looks like? It looks like Sam and Becca.
Sam is a Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the National Football League. Yep. The NFL. She just so happens to be the NFL's only out executive, where she's a 20 year veteran.
Her wife, Becca, is a producer, director, and filmmaker currently creating films at Time Studios.
They also happen to have two little amazing children at four and eight months old.
We cover a lot in this. We get into all about how they met, started a family and learned both have incredibly high profile careers while raising their kiddos. We also talk about the stigma they face as a gay couple and what society feels is and isn't acceptable for them in raising their children.
Sam and Becca are good friends, allies, and two of the best parents I know. I hope you enjoy this conversation and all the wisdom they share.
Okay, Sam and Becca, let's get into it.
[INTERVIEW]
Jelani: Sam and Becca. Welcome to the show.
Sam: Hi. Hi, Jelani, thanks for having us.
Jelani: This conversation specifically was one that I was so excited to have. I'm excited to dive into both you, your backgrounds, your journey as parents. But how did you two meet?
Becca: Well, we both have different versions of this story.
Sam: True, true. Here's Becca's
Becca: We've been, we've been dissecting it for the last 10 years, but both Sam and I are very passionate about equality and sports and gender. And we were both in a bar one night and a friend, a mutual friend of ours was like, you two probably would really like each other. And, at the time, I was the dreaded word, “straight”.
And, um, Sam and I just, well, Sam fell madly in love with me that night. I like to say, but it took us, um, it took us a little while to, to get it together. But, yeah.
Sam: I'd like to say I knew as soon as I met her. I'm not sure. I felt, I'm not sure. I believe in love at first sight. I knew at first sight mm-hmm and you know, Becca had previously only dated men and she only stayed for about 20 minutes.
And when she left the bar that. I, I spoke to my best friend and said, “Why have you never introduced me to her?” And she said, “Dude, she's straight.” And my good friend Davina is the bartender. And I said, “Davina, that woman that just walked out… She's straight?” And she goes, “Heck no!”
And so I was like, there's no way that woman is straight. And, uh, you know, nine and a half years later here, we are still madly in love with each other.
Becca: Yeah.
Jelani: Yeah. I love that story. That's wonderful. So, you meet, you fall wildly in love, and you eventually start your journey as parents. Tell me about that.
Becca: Yeah. We, we always knew we wanted to be parents. I think we met, um, you know, when we moved in together within a month, like we were, we were on the path. We always knew that, that we were gonna be parents.
And what's interesting about women is we had to have a very early conversation about biology and carrying and how we were gonna do this, you know? And, um, so it was a longer road for us than we had had originally imagined.
But I guess two years after we got married, we said, “Okay, now is the time.” And, and at the time I was, um, sort of rising in my career and I had just directed my first big film. And I said, “Well, I can't do it now.” And, and somebody said, well, you know, there's no, there's no time. There's no right time. And Sam was creeping up into our later thirties. So, uh, it was sort of now then, or never. And then it took us a long time.
Sam: Yeah. We both knew we wanted kids. Uh, I grew up with babies around me all the time, so it was very natural to me. Becca had never changed the diaper, I don't think before you met me. And so, uh, you know, it was an interesting balance of me saying, “Yeah, let's do this.” And Becca's saying, “Oh, I don't know what this is.”
But you know, one of the cool things about being gay parents, I think is that. There are no mistakes. It's very planned and it takes a long time to plan and a lot of usually a lot of money to plan. And so I, you know, I like to say when people question about, you know, two women or two men or two people of same gender, um, you know, raising kids is, you know, they're very loved children because you have to put a lot into making them and it's with a lot of purpose and intention.
Jelani: It makes me wanna dig into something sort of specific, which is, you know, you all decide to start this journey as parents. What, what was your own childhoods like? And, and was that?
Well, let me give a little bit of personal story. Right? So traumatic childhood, uh, grew up the youngest of four siblings. I didn't know that I was like neglected and that abandoned by my dad when I was like a young 12 year old boy, like trying to live life and play sports and be cool. Right?
But I was like dealing with a lot and it wasn't until I got into my twenties that I started to unpack that stuff. And then it wasn't until my thirties. I was like, “Oh my God, I think I had like a terrible childhood, probably.”
And a lot of fatherhood for me has been, um, overturning stones to see what's underneath them. Right. And lifting up all these rugs and going, wow, there's a lot of garbage underneath that. And it's coming out in my parenting. I should, I should undo some of that stuff.
Part of me wants to ask how you grew up, but part of me wants to go, did you start to uncover some of that stuff? Was there any of that stuff or did you have perfect childhoods and, and it was all good. And you became perfect parents?
Sam: So much. So much to discuss here. Becca, why don't you go first?
Becca: Um, we are not perfect parents, right? We, we probably, what I will say is that we do our best for our children, but we say all the time in this house that like half of the way we parent or three quarters or 97.9% is just to make up for how we were parented when we were young.
We grew up very differently. I grew up, um, a bit harder and Sam grew up a bit more coddled, but my life was much more truthful and hers was much more smoke and mirrors. And so it's like very interesting.
We both now only have moms. So there's like very interesting, um, depictions of men in our life or depictions might not be the right word, but, um, so we, we grew up very differently and I think that that shows a lot in our parenting. Um, I overcompensate for everything. So I wanted to like coddle my kids, but I'm actually not very warm and fuzzy, but like, I'll sit and hold my baby for hours.
And Sam's like, “But you won't hug me.” And I'm like, “But she needs it.” You know, so there's like all of these funny, funny things because you know, my mom, like I grew up in a world where my mom was like, if you're not bleeding from your face, you're not bleeding. Right. So. My son has a runny nose, you know, I'm like, oh, so yeah.
Sam: Um, I think we just, we go opposite, right? Becca was not coddled at all. She was kind of you know, she went to sleepaway camp at five years old and was kind of left, um, sometimes to be by yourself. Is that right?
And, and so, and I was very, very coddled by my primary parent, which was my mom. And so we both went opposite ways. I don't wanna coddle my kid. I want him, I wanna give him the tools to learn how to fight his own battles. I don't wanna fight his battles for him.
I say “he” because our other one is only seven months old. And Becca is more so, you know, wants to fight. Battles, wants to be with him all the time, uh, to compensate for what she felt she was lacking.
So, you know, to answer your question straight Jelani, you know, like neither one of us had perfect childhoods. I struggled with my father quite a bit, he's passed away. Um, but you know, we, I, I find maybe 95% of our parenting is trying to compensate for how we wish our childhoods would've changed.
[BREAK]
Jelani: We're back. You're listening to Better Grownups, and my conversation with Sam and Becca.
Becca: I will say the one principle that both of our childhoods have given us is that we want our children to feel very safe, right? Like we, we live with this sort of feeling like, no matter what we are your safe place to land, like, you know, if, if our son is having a tantrum, like, we love you. We're here. You know, if you need me in the middle of the night, You should be sleeping in your bed. Please go sleep in your own bed. But like, I am here if you need me. And so we try to create like stability and consistency, which is something that neither one of us had that we massively craved.
Sam: And one thing there, Jelani, that’s interesting, cuz we talked about like, you know, the hard parts of childhood, but we all, I also encompass the amazing parts of my mom. Uh, you know, when I was a child, I had a, an incredible, incredibly debilitating fear of kidnappers mm-hmm , uh, to the point where I needed to speak to someone and I, I couldn't sleep ever at night. I just felt like I was gonna get kidnapped. So my mom. I told her all I wanted for my birthday was a security guard and we weren't getting that. So my mom for a very long period of time slept outside my room, sitting up so I could sleep because she was my security guard.
So, you know, while we talk about the challenges, I also wanna say that resonated and many things she did resonated with me for my life that I impart on my children. And something like that type of safety to me is phenomenal. I wanna give that kind of safety to my kids.
Becca: Yeah. And, and I do, I feel like I need to defend my mom a little here too, because the other day we were out with my kids and she helped, they both help us a lot, which like makes this train run. And my mom was helping me the other day with Jordy. And I was like, “You're such a different…” We took him to an indoor amusement park, which is. Something, I never would've done with a child. Like I never went to the beach. Like we didn't, we didn't do things. Right. Like we weren't a kid forward sort of house. Right?
Like Sam's life like revolved around the kids. Like, that's not what mine was. And I was like, “Mom, you're such a different grandparent”. And she was like, “You know, parenting when you guys were young was just terrifying.” She's like, “Now I feel so free.” And I was like, “That's so interesting because it is so terrifying when you're in it all day long.”
Jelani: Mm I one: Bravo to you, both for having such a clear view of how you were parented and keeping the stuff that was good and jettisoning the stuff that was bad, like sometimes, and I don't think I'm alone here.
Sometimes it just feels like you're, so much is happening all at once, all the time with being a parent that separating all those bits and pieces out and having a clear perspective to go, “Am, am I yelling at my kids right now because I was yelled at, or cuz I wasn't yelled at, or am I just tired or do I need like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
You know what I mean? Like totally, totally like what's happening with me today. And like, can I just get a minute alone just to like think why this is happening? And a, a big part of my parenting journey has been trying to understand why I am the way that I am. And I, I, I think I see that, but you all feel miles and miles ahead of me in that, in that journey, which brings me sort of to the next sort of piece of what I wanna talk about, which is you both have incredible careers, like, and I want to dive into each and let you both sort of tell the stories around those.
But I also,like I have this belief that we are whole people as parents, right? Like, we have wants, we have desires, we have things we like to do. We have jobs and that is woven and how we are and who we are as parents in a really wonderful and positive way.
So, let's talk about your careers a little bit, and then I want to talk about how those intersect with your two kiddos?
Sam: The best way to talk about our careers would be for me to tell you about Becca. Yeah. And Becca to tell you about me.
Becca: Alright. Go for it.
Sam: Um, I'm Canadian. So I don't like to talk about myself. So I'm gonna tell you about Becca. Uh, so Becca is an incredibly brilliant film director. Who's been working in the industry for 15 years.
She has two Emmys. She's been nominated 11 times. And she is, but, but the most impressive thing about her besides how incredible of a director she is, is her kind of indignance and, and perseverance in trying to use her platform and her microphone to create the change in the world that she wants to see.
So while she's done, you know, amazing pieces on princess Diana and what have you, but if she's doing princess Diana, she is gonna take that theme and turn it into something that, you know, she believes can tell a message that can make the world a better place and so, you know, in 400 years when Becca leaves this earth, hopefully it's that long, you know, she will have left this earth a, a more enlightened place because of the way that she tells stories.
Jelani: You're very succinct. I, I like this “let the other person go”. Now, it's your turn.
Becca: Well, we are each other's biggest fans. And I think, um, first of all, the only reason that I am successful and I will swear by this till the end of time, is that everybody needs a wife, right? Like, the reason that you don't see a lot of successful women is because they don't have wives. So, this is like my motto in life that everybody needs a wife.
But, um, you know, I think that Sam is hands down one of the brilliant people I have ever met. And I think, you know, she has paved the way for women in the NFL, but I think in a much broader way. You know, creating a pipeline, seeing a problem saying, you know, no one else is gonna fix this, so I'm gonna fix it for you and has basically disrupted the entire system, right?
Like there were, there were no women when Sam came into the NFL 20 years ago and now I think something like 225 women have gone through the NFL ranks now. Like, 18 or something, clubs are participating. Like she has completely changed what the NFL will look like.
But, but not in a singular fashion. Right? Like this is transcendent of our generation. Right. Mm-hmm and she says all the time and talks like if pick a problem that's solved in our generation. It's not big enough. And I think that that's what Sam is as a, as a thinker. Right? So, you know, she's like 25 women changing the world. She's on every 40, under 40 list that's ever been printed. Right.
But so she's an incredibly impressive figure. And I think what makes us very different in our careers. And then what translates into parenting is Sam has this like, um, you know how there's just people that have it. Like you can't, you can't explain what it is? Like, once Billy Jean King and Sam we're sitting down together, I'm just gonna name drop. There you go.
Jelani: Do it. I love it.
Becca: She goes, she goes, “Sam. You just have it, like you can't explain it.” And like, this is what I've always known about Sam. Like, you know, I, I go in between, I tell my therapist this all the time, which by the way, Jelani is the only reason that we're involved because we heavily therapize ourselves. But so she has it. So she, she has the ability to think very large, but not necessarily like in the dirty. Like, she doesn't, you know, always have the ability to get her hands dirty. Whereas like, I am an over worker, right. Like I will outwork you. I will out think you. I will do all of these things.
And so you know, Sam lives by this like, “When my brilliance strikes me, then it it does.” Right? And I'm like glued to my computer. And, and so, um, we, we think very differently. And as that translates to parenthood, you know, Sam's always like you, you should work smarter and not harder.
And I'm like, “If we are not on the floor with our kids 24 hours a day, like we are not parenting hard enough?”
[BREAK]
Jelani: It’s Better Grownups, a parenting podcast all about how to be a better grownup. And you’re listening to my conversation with Sam and Becca.
Jelani: I've gotten to know both of you and, and feel like, um, I have a really interesting and unique relationship with, with you each, individually, but also like collectively it's like this fun, cool thing.
And you all have been really big champions of me and, and, and A Kids Co. and the work that we do. And obviously we got to work on A Kids Book About Allyship together, which was so cool and fun.And I don't know, I just feel like y'all have this figured out. Like y'all, y'all got something figured out.
Let me make some observations. You both have very successful, full time, like charge-hard careers. I think in a, in a quote unquote, normal relationship, where that would have sort of gendered stereotype type roles as one person ascends and one person descends. Like that's almost always the way that it goes.
And to your point, Becca, like “everyone needs a wife”. I think about my own upbringing, like I was raised by my mom. And so all I knew was sort of that feminine ideal of like, here's what moms do. And so in a lot of ways, how I parent my kids is I parent them like a mom. And in a lot of ways, the way that I'm as a spouse is a lot like a wife in that when, when my wife was like, “Hey, I think I wanna do this nonprofit.” Like, I was like, “Great, go do it.”
Like, whatever I gotta do to mold myself and fit around what you are doing so that you can be successful like we're not counting dollars and going whose job's more important or anything like that. It's about us trying to compliment each other.
And I know that's weird cuz I know other dudes and I know how they sort of juxtapose with their wives and there's a sense of like, “Well, but you're like the breadwinner and like your job's like more important, right? So you should be doing like, it's like…” Well, no, that's not… That's not how this works.
Jelani: And, uh, I think that brings me to the next part, which is like a lot of the ways you parent is about breaking down gender stereotypes. And you all are living that out, I think with your careers. And I want to hear more about how you live that out in your parenting.
Becca: What's very funny. And like, I hope our son never hears this, but when we found out, when we finally found out, um, we had a bit of a hard road to, to get Jordy. And when we finally found that Jordy was in there and he was good. And, um, I carried him, um, they said, um, “It's a boy”. We got our blood test back and it's a boy. And I was like, “No, it isn't.” And they were like, “Well, yeah, it is.” I was like, “Well, no, it isn't like, check it again.” They were like, “It's a blood test.”
And so what we came around to is that. We could really infiltrate from the inside, right? Like we could teach our son how to be a good human and break down stereotypes. And, you know, he only knows…
Like, the other day we were asking him what is something about each of us. And he goes, “Well, you know, mommy goes to the city.” I, he calls me, mommy. “Mommy goes to the city and makes the money.” And I was like, “How did I become part of the patriarchy”? And then I was like, wait, that's amazing! So, like, my son equates with a mommy now, right? Yeah. And then maybe he says that to someone else.
And so we try to be, um, like we don't, we'll never live in a world where like Tobin, our daughter has to get up and do the dishes and Jordy doesn't right. Like we. We feel very strongly that he wears pink and purple because he wears blue and green. Like, you know, it's, it's like small fundamental things that like are real building blocks to creating like, an equitable place instead of like living in these norms.
I mean, Sam like studies this and does it much more than I do, but I, I try my best to live by it.
Sam: I think so. And part of the reason why we struggled initially with having a boy was we were worried about society and what they were gonna think. Right? I, I have no problem raising a man and I have no problem raising a girl or any gender. I can teach them everything they need to.
What I was worried about was what other people were gonna say. And that fear came true a lot of the time. We wrote about that. Um, in our, in our kids' book of parenting for you, Jelani, is, um, you know, the things that we've heard, what people are thinking inside their head, and for some reason, feel like they need to share or ask about us raising a boy, you know, it did come true and that's where some of our anxiety, you know, it still exists. I'm not worried about.
I teach him everything he needs to know when he wants to shave his face. If he does, I can teach him to shave his face. I can teach him to clean his body, just like I can teach my daughter to clean her body. But those are the questions that we get asked, uh, quite a bit. So, you know, it's, it's a little bit hard, but we, you know.
We're, to answer your question a little bit more directly, you know, we're really, we're kind of raising them genderless, but not blind to it. So, you know, like we're not, we're not pretending that, you know, he's not, he's a boy and she's a girl unless they tell us differently, but we're just allowing them to be themselves. We're exposing them to everything. And he happens to be really into trucks and fighting and swords and guns and not guns and, uh, you know, other things. And so we're fostering that. We put him, we're putting him in karate, right. I sword fight with him in the morning. But he's also had dolls and, you know, he has a kitchen still that he loves and things like that.
You know, and so interestingly, you know, he has a traditional boy characteristics, but he adamantly his favorite color is pink and purple. And it has been since he can remember. And I love that he doesn't think there's anything wrong with that. Now, a kid at his school told him that it should be blue um, because that kid is clearly being raised a little bit differently, but, or exposed to different things, but Jordy has no qualms about the fact that he happens to be really into trucks and swords, but his favorite color is pink and purple.
Jelani: Hmm. So my son, Solomon, he's four years old and, and as I hear about, you know, your little one. I, I, I hear a lot of that in, in, in my little guy who like loves to wrestle, you know, he loves like punch and kick and like, you know, wants to do all the sort of quote unquote traditional boy stuff.
But, he's also got all these girls in the household and he's got a bunch of cousins. And so, you know, wearing a tiara or playing dress up or getting his nails done, or even, you know, every once in a while, getting his makeup done, like cuz all the other girls are getting their makeup done. He loves that.
And like I know in the back of my head, here's what society says is okay. Here's what society says is not okay. Which, when we say “society”, we mean this sort of very amorphous thing that like, what does that even mean? Like which society, right. Who gets to decide this? Um, but I, I remember a few moments where it was like, you know, my other kids would look at me and go, is this sort of like, is this okay? Is this okay that we're, we're letting him do this?
And I wonder. And we're not gonna solve it. And maybe there's not an easy answer to this cuz if there were, it was an easy answer to this, then you know, this wouldn't exist, but like what is it underneath that? Is it that sort of pressure of like what other people will think of this, not even what we think of it, but going, if someone finds out they might…
And I don't know what the end of that sentence is, but they might what, right. Like what might happen? Like will society collapse. If my son has fingernail paint on, right? Will society collapse if my son wears a purple shirt, right?
Like what, what's the thing that happens afterwards. And I feel like right now, our society, in this country, it's very polarized and, and, and there's arguments on both sides are all sides and it's grappling with this and there's a lot of tension around it. And, and I kind of want to hear from both of you to speak directly, to like, what is that, what is that fear underlying those stereotypes about what's that issue or what might happen or what's dangerous about it?
Sam: I've such deep feelings about this question, Jelani. I'm thrilled you asked it. You know, when I spoke to my therapist about this, she, she taught me that, you know, centuries ago, all genders loved to decorate their bodies, right? To decorate, men put tattoos on typically, right. Women do, too. But men, they wanna decorate their body to express themselves in their way. So tell me why a boy putting on blue nail polish or pink nail, whatever is any different than a tattoo? It's a, it's a self-expression with color, right?
So inherently in all of us, we like to decorate our bodies to represent who we are now fast forward to where society is right now. And what, what I kept thinking about interestingly, Jelani, I know you've talked about privilege a lot, and I think about this in the context of our parenting is so we don't paint our son's nails. We don't, we have not introduced him to dresses and skirts, and there is a privilege in being straight or a single parent.
Becca: I literally wrote myself a note so I didn't forget. It says the exact same thing.
Sam: High five wife.
Becca: It says “disadvantaged because we're both women”.
Sam: Okay. So. Great job. So, um, you know, the, the privilege of being straight is that, so there are a couple of kids in, in our son's class, boys who wear nail polish on their toes, on their fingers. And the, and the parents are super cool and we love seeing that. Right?
But we don't really have the privilege of doing that because the feeling in everyone's head and we know it, cuz we feel it and we smell it and we taste it is “he is going to be too feminine”. Mm-hmm you are going to feminize this boy.
And so while I wish I had the guts and the backbone to say, forget that I don't care if my son, he happens to not be interested, but if he was, I'm curious if I would have the guts to do it because we know because every, everyone tells us all the time that that's the assumption mm-hmm . Yeah. Right?
We met a guy at a, at a bridal shower recently who told, who looked at my son. We didn't know him. He looked at my son and said, “Don't worry, Jordy, I'll take you to a cigar lounge when you're older and man you up.
He is lucky that he is still alive because I cannot tell you what I was feeling inside when he made that inference. So…
Becca: But it happens like, you know. That is, is egregious, but like, it happens in much smaller ways with people that we're friends with, you know, that spend a lot of time with us and they're like, well, you know, if, if you need “blanks”, you know… my husband to teach Jordy like how to pee. And we were like, like, she meant well, but like, why. Why like, why would that happen?
And so I think the assumption, we have two moms that like, their kid just likes to wear dresses. Right. And like, even the most well-meaning of people are like, well, you're making him gay, you know? Like, whereas like we're assuming that this is something that we're forcing upon our kids rather than like letting them express themselves for who they are.
And by the way, like, a four-year-old should be able to do anything. I don't even really understand why gender matters when they're this young at all. Right? Like they all run around naked and they all have their things. And like, I don't really understand any of it, but. We're at such a disadvantage because like any, you know, when we would put our son in pink pajamas, right. When he was young, everyone was like, “Oh, like he should be wearing, like, more manly pajamas.”
We're like, “You mean our 18 month baby? You'd be wearing more manly pajamas that were handed down to us. So you want me to buy new pajamas?” You know, and like, even if I did buy them, like, you know, so I think that, um, there's such a, there's such a, like, it…
It's so different for us, right to be able to yeah. Um, to explore, you know, any sort of gender stereotypes in that way, because you. There's there's a disadvantage.
Sam: Yeah. And it's just so insulting and you're showing all your colors when you say something like that, because what you're suggesting then is being gay is less than, right? If you're saying “you're gonna turn him gay” or “you're gonna make him feminine”, or “you're gonna make him like boys or men”, it's like, “Okay. So you're saying that what, the way I'm living is, is worse than the way you're living.”
And I happen to think personally, that being gay is a huge privilege now. And, um, you know, I, I adore it. I would never, when I was young, I would've paid a million dollars for a straight pill. Uh, I wouldn't take that stuff if it was anywhere near my face. If you paid me 10 billion right now, I love being gay. Um, and so it's so insulting because you're really suggesting like, oh, you're gonna make him. You know, weird or different or, you know, and it's, um, it's an ongoing battle that we both are gonna deal with our whole lives.
Becca: Yeah. And it's so interesting how, like now we have a second baby and nobody questions our parenting with her, where we got a lot with him. And I've never thought about that until right this second.
Jelani: What the, I think there's a brilliance in observation of y'all don't have the privilege to maybe make some of the decisions that I'm making with my son, because it'll never be that sense that I am somehow hurting him, disadvantaging him, making him gay because I'm, you know, a heterosexual man. Right.?
And, candidly, I've never thought about that before, but it's totally right on. And that look, as you all you'll have already illuminated, there's, like, ten layers down of all these presuppositions about what kind of controls we have over our kids. What kind of things we can and cannot decide for them? Um, what is good and what is bad, not just imposed on us by other folks, but sort of us changing our behavior to behave in a way that we wouldn't because of how it might be perceived. Even though we don't believe it's bad.
That's, I mean, that's heavy and I like, look, I can, I can relate in some ways cause I navigate the world as a black man and I'm always, you know, like I'm sensitive to make sure, like I bought this and it's going in the bag and there's a receipt and I still have the receipt just in case. Right? Cause I don't ever wanna be walking out of a store and have somebody be like, “Hey, like, you know, did you buy that?” Right? Because it, because that's my experience.
And I think, look, I think this conversation's valuable for all the parents who are not you two, who are saying the off-color comment, who are looking at the other kids in the class who are making a judgment about the way their parents or parent is parenting them and all this assumptions underlying that, which is just like, quit that like stop that because it's destructive, not only to yourself, but it's destructive to that kid. It's destructive to the parents and it sort overlays this oppressive mentality, which is all about conformity, conformity, conformity, and actually like fit into the stereotype or else.
Sam: Mm-hmm mm-hmm.
Becca: Yeah like what's so interesting, Jelani.
It’s like, you know, if you came in and your son's nails were painted, right someone would be like, you're such a good ally. Like, it's so good for you. Right? Like it's such an interesting, um, where.
And we do it. You're right. It's about anything, right? Like it's, it's about like overcompensating or undercompensating for like the situation that your kids are in where like, you know, I think, um, like a heteronormative white family, doesn't always have those sort of double takes of like, “Am I doing the right thing?” Like, overthinking, you know, anything that should be so simple and pure for our children. Right.
And so we, you know, we, it happens to us in books a lot, right? Like, I'll ask Sam, like, I'll be reading him a book and I'll be like, “Do you change daddy to mama in the book?” Because like I switch on and off from being like, You know, he's four, he's starting to ask questions like, and we, we always said we would be extremely honest and we explained where he comes from. And, you know, he'll, if you, if you ask him, he'll say like, you needed help from a man to have me. And we're like, “That's right. We did.” Right. But I changed “dad” to “mama” a lot, because like, I want him to feel like that's a normal and regular part of society because we live in a bubble right, where like he sees that, but in the, in the larger world, like he's gonna be different.
And, you know, we, we, we have to really tow the line of like, um, teaching him that he's different and we are different, but also like differences are good, but it's also okay to feel sad that you're different.
Sam: Yeah. You also don't really wanna, I don't wanna make a conscious effort to parent to the default, which is two straight people, uh, of different genders, right?
Like I want, we expose 'em to everything. I don't say I don't change it to mama all the time. I'd say half and half. Sometimes I throw mama in there because half and half, all of our books are mommy. Like we try to get, you know, yeah. Uh, um, LGBTQ+ parenting books for our kids, but every all shows, everything is mommy and daddy, so, um, you know, I don't want him to think that default is normal for anything, not just for LGBTQ+, you know, are both, our kids are white, right?
I don't want them thinking that the way that their names sound or the way that their hair is or the way that they dress or anything about them is the default, right. That other people should conform to. They are individuals, we are, families are individuals and we respect other people's individuality and, and ours should be respected as well. So I don't, I don't like default parenting .
Jelani: Yeah. Uh, I mean, uh, I I'm living that every day with my kids and, and thank God my my kids just know their stuff. Like they're just really, like, I don't credit that to my wife and I at all, like really, like. They are just, they're just savvy and smart and navigate the world in such a thoughtful way.
And, and like, again and again, on this podcast, I've talked about gen Z and just the, the virtues of gen Z and how much further they're taking so many causes because they just don't give a heck, right? Like they're just going there and they're really disrupting so many things and like, I…
My kids are constantly undoing and disrupting defaults in some really remarkable and amazing ways. And I dunno, I just think, I think your, your two kiddos, they're very lucky to have you both, uh, and the, and the thoughtfulness and the nuance that you both bring to the you know, parenting them.
Becca: I do not. Thank you. But I do not accept that your kids are that way. That's true. Like, I reject that, Jelani, like wholeheartedly because kids are listening. Right? And like, they are creatures of us. Right?
And like, it's so interesting to, as our kids start getting friends and like, we see how other kids live and speak and all of these things, and like, it's so much a product of what you listen to and what we let him watch. And the books that we read him, like, you know, Jordy's very first book was A Kids Book About Racism. Like, yeah, we, we have a video on our phone. That's like, “Jordy.” You know, “What is it when someone is being made fun of by the color of their skin?” And he's like, “That's racism”, right?
That stuff matters. What we talk about around the dinner table that matters, that seeps into their brains, right? Like you can like hush, hush, like, oh, we're only gonna talk about it over here. But like, if you're sitting there talking about like, you know, oh, racist or xenophobic or homophobic things like they get that and they grasp onto it in their own way.
And that shapes who they are. And so like, they're started as a clean slate and like it's our responsibility to make the humans that they, they start to be, then they can do it their own way, but like the start and the principles and the foundation is our job.
Sam: Yeah. It all started for us with A Kids Book About Racism, honestly.
And we probably go overboard with it, but we constantly pop quiz him around the house. And we about every, not just racism about everything and we kind of, you know, making it about us. We say, “What do you think is like the better family, someone with two moms or someone with one dad?” And he's like, “They're both the same.” And we say to him all the time, this is my, as I say, “What skin color of all this beautiful skin colors in the world is the most beautiful, what people are the most beautiful?” And he goes, “All skin is beautiful.”
But you know, but to, to Becca's point Jelani about you and, and you not giving you and your wife any credit is I, I do feel like messages are seeped in every second of their lives, right? Jordy walks into his house every day with a huge, a six-foot image of, uh, the young girl who challenged the wall street bowl. And she's standing there angry with her hands, crossed “the fearless girl” is her name. Um, and so, you know, we we've talked to him a little bit about it.
He doesn't understand that at all, but you know, it's so interesting what seeps in and you know what you've done Jelani to challenge the system of, of people, banning books and thinking kids aren't ready. You know, your kids are probably empowered by the fact that my, my dad, you know, started this thing. That's showing that kids are ready and clearly your kids are ready.
Becca: And it's not just speaking. Right. It's like to Sam's point about seeing like the way you treat other people, right? Like it, it it's such a.
We make Jordy say thank you to every single person. Like, I mean, from the garbage truck, like we roll down the windows and we're like, you say, thank you, right? Like, we want him to understand that everybody is valuable and we're all the same and nobody is better than anybody else. And you know, that's important to us big time.
Jelani: Well, thank you. I will take the compliment for what it is.
And maybe look, it's all we're really doing as parents is we're we're pressing the reset button on the defaults and going, “Can’t it just be a different way?” And can we just start our kids off with this new set of ideas, principles, ways of living where they're not sort of corrupted by all this bias, all this, um, discrimination, all the racism, all the sort of gender bias, and then have to undo that as they become adults is what have they just started with a new default that was better?
And, and that is a thing that's constantly going on in my mind, which often causes me to say things or not say things and just listen and also model certain behaviors or certain actions that I hope are just seeping into the ether that just become the normal for our home. And, and I hope they take that out in their, out there into the world, but I think along with both you. I just, I just hope I'm doing a good job. Like, I don't know if I'm doing a good, I just hope I'm doing a good job.
Sam: I have to preface that, Jelani, Because I, as we're talking, it sounds like we're the flipping parents of the years.
Becca: I was just gonna say that.
Sam: I have to keep it real with the audience. Like we, we don't know what the heck we're doing. You know, like we are figuring this out day by day. We mess up all the time. Our kids say things that we I'm like, “How do I correct this? How do I correct this? What am I supposed to say?” Um, I'm, I'm not always on the floor crawling around playing toys, being the ideal parent I try to be, but so I, I just don't want.
I just don't wanna pretend like we have this all figured out because we're just every day, we're like we did a good job with that. Yeah, not that we, sometimes we grade our parenting and I told her the other day, I'm like, I gave myself A+ today. Like I was so I, what did I say? “I left it all on the field today.” Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but some days I give myself a C you know, like, and that's okay. That's okay. I'm shooting for all around B+ if I'm a B+ when I die, I'll be super happy with myself.
Becca: Yeah, I that's next. Yeah. I wanted to say the same thing because I, this makes us seem like we've like really got it together. And like, we still fight about like, who's washing the bottles at night. Right.
So I, I don't think that we have, um, perfected this parenting thing. Like we, especially adding a second one into the mix. We were like, “Oh my God, this is this is such a nightmare.”
So, um, we, we have not figured out the balance of life and parenting. And I think that people, especially in the age of social media, that just like, pretend like all things are sunshine and rainbows is lying to themselves and to everyone else.
So we're doing our best, you know? We we're trying our best.
Jelani: Well, I think, I think the one thing that I've learned is true is only bad parents think they're always doing the right thing. Only bad parents. Right.
Sam: You know, if that reminds me of Jelani, like only racist people say they're not racist.
Jelani: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: You know what I mean?
Jelani: Yeah. It's like a racist bone in my body. What does that mean?
Sam: I don't have a racist bone in my body.
Becca: I have plenty of black friends.
Jelani: Yeah.
Sam: No, but it's so true. It's that, you know, people that study anti-racism, they will tell you that they're very racist, you know, like, because these images are, are, um, you know, sent to us from a young age, right?
Like I'm trying to undo a ton of racism in me. And so when people say I don't bone my body, so that just reminded me of exactly what you just said. If they think they're killing it, you know, what's going on behind closed doors.
Jelani: Yeah. Well, I, I feel like this is, uh, you know, due for a part two sometime. Sam, Becca, thank you so much for this. This is enlightening, helpful, encouraging. Uh, so glad to have you on the show.
[CLOSING]
Jelani: Thanks again to Sam and Becca. And to you for listening.
You can check out Sam and Becca’s book, A Kids Book About Allyship, by visiting akidsco.com.
And keep up with me at @jelanimemory on Twitter.
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Better Grownups is written and hosted by me, Jelani Memory. Matthew Winner, the one and only, is the producer on this episode, with additional production support from Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios.
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